


Abyss

by wordbending



Series: Undyne Appreciation Week [5]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Grief/Mourning, Neutral Route, Severe Depression, Suicide, kill mettaton ending, semi-canonical character death, suicidal thoughts/ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 03:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11592339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending
Summary: Alphys disappears. Undyne mourns.For Day Five ofUndyne Appreciation Week: the scenario that hurts your heart the most.





	Abyss

“WHY DIDN’T YOU GO WITH ASGORE ON VACATION?”

...

“UNDYNE?”

...

“Yeah, vacation, right!” she said. “I can’t believe I forgot. Duh.”

* * *

As the days went on, Undyne felt the numbness more than the rage, although she certainly felt both. There was something like a giant weight placed on her back, and it was only her unceasing, righteous anger that allowed her to keep getting up in the morning.

That, and having Alphys to support her. That was enough for her to get up in the morning.

...But Alphys hadn’t been doing so well, not since Mettaton’s very public death at the hands of _them._ And especially not since Asgore’s death had been confirmed. She still smiled, sometimes, when Undyne told her jokes. She still posted on Undernet, now and then. She still ranted about anime, although her figurative heart didn’t seem to be in it anymore.

But, more and more, the lab was closed. Alphys didn’t come out, and nobody came in, not even Undyne. Every time Undyne went and found the doors shut, she was struck by an overwhelming terror – but when she called out for Alphys, Alphys would text her “Not today, sorry v.v” or something to that effect, and Undyne would go back to Papyrus’ house to give Alphys the space she needed.

That was what Undyne expected when she came to Alphys’ lab one day and found it closed. She knocked on the giant metallic doors, the sound reverberating through the caves of Hotland, but there was no answer from inside.

“Alphys!!!” Undyne screamed, cupping her hands over her mouth. “It’s me, Undyne!!! I want to hang out! Are you there?!”

There was no reply.

Undyne fished out her phone from her jacket pocket and opened the messaging system to text Alphys.

“ALPHY!!! ITS ME!!!!!!! I WANMT TO HANG! OEPN UR F****** DOR OK! >:-O”

Alphys only took thirty seconds to reply, max. She was always on her phone and never left it behind.

Undyne waited five minutes.

“ALPHY!!!!!!!!! THIS ISN{“t FUNNY!!!! IM GONNAA KICK UR DOWR DOWN”

“IM NT KIDDING YK!!!”

“ILL FRKIGN DO IT”

Undyne, for all her immense strength, knew she couldn’t actually kick down the door. But she had methods.

“OK!!!” she texted. “IM CMING IN”

Undyne stuck both her hands in the tiny gap between the two giant doors. It only took a little effort for her to get a grip between them. Firmly planting her feet in the ground, she started to pull the doors apart, grunting as she strained her muscles with the effort of moving thousands of pounds of metal.

A few minutes later, the doors had been forced open. Undyne, covered in sweat, stood triumphantly at the doorway.

“I freaking warned you!” Undyne shouted, but it was into an empty room. The lights were turned off. Alphys’ screen, the big one she had used to track the human, was off. The bag of dog food (why did Alphys even have that anyway?) was gone.

“Alphys?” she shouted, raising her hand over her mouth again and peering around the lab. She pressed a nearby button to turn on the lights, but it took a few moments for the lights to come on, and they flickered oddly when she did. “Alphy? Are you there?”

But nobody came.

Undyne picked up her pace. She climbed the escalator leading to the upstairs hallway, bouncing up the steps impatiently, but Alphys wasn’t there. Her bed that folded into a convenient box was still conveniently boxed. Her engineering tools, her manga, her anime DVDs, were exactly as they’d been left the last time Undyne had been upstairs – which was, by Undyne’s recollection, weeks ago. How long had it been since Alphys had been up there?

Undyne went back downstairs, the magic that made her body pounding through her so hard it was giving her a headache. There was one place left, but it was kind of stupid. Surely if she was just in the bathroom, she would have come out by now?

Undyne tried it anyway. She knocked on the bathroom door. She’d never been in Alphys’ bathroom (why did Alphys have that either? Monsters didn’t need bathrooms), but the door was surprisingly heavy to the touch, like Undyne was punching a solid wall.

Still, no reply from inside there either. Undyne moved to turn around when she stepped on something on the floor. It was a piece of paper, no different than any of the other discarded documents and unfinished figures strewn all around the lab.

Curious, Undyne picked it up and looked at it. It had been written in Alphys’ scratchy, difficult to read handwriting, which Undyne expected, in a bright red pen that made it stick out. But it was even more difficult to read than normal. Even stranger, it was... wet. And covered in marks, like Alphys had spilled water on it.

Undyne came to a sudden realization, one that made her instantly go cold.

The marks were tear stains.

“If you want to know ‘the truth’... enter the door to the north of this note.”

Undyne’s grip on the piece of paper tightened, almost crushing it.

“...You all at least deserve to know what I did.”

This time, Undyne did crush the note in her fist. She turned to the bathroom door and, before she even consciously became aware of what she was doing, kicked it down.

It led to an elevator. Undyne rode it down.

She found, to her horror, the Amalgamates, bowls and bowls of dog food and chips and other miscellaneous food left for them, enough to last for months. She found the notes explaining everything that had happened – the monsters who had Fallen Down, the desperate attempts to use what Alphys had called “Determination” to revive them, giving a flower from the surface the will to live.

Undyne didn’t give a damn about any of it. She only had one goal in mind – find Alphys.

She didn’t.

Almost moving by instinct, Undyne returned to the lab above ground. She started to search every nook and cranny of Hotland, speaking to every monster she could find – every monster that hadn’t been killed by that selfish human.

“I saw her! I saw her! But I don’t remember where! Helpful directions!”

“Yeah! She went by here not too long ago ;)”

“Haven’t seen her! Not that I’d tell you or anything!!! Idiot!!!”

She even went to Sans. Or tried to – he was missing from his sentry post, of course. He always was lately, when before, he'd always be there somehow, no matter where she appeared from.

She went to Waterfall.

She went to Snowdin.

She went to New Home.

She went to the barrier.

She went all the way to the Ruins, knocking on the giant door there. She pulled open the door, finding nothing but a pile of dust at the entrance, a few Froggits, and strangely, an exact copy of Asgore’s house, down to nearly the smallest detail.

But there was no sign of Alphys.

She had a different idea. She headed back to Waterfall, but this time, she turned before reaching Gerson’s shop. She went down past the piles of garbage until she reached the pathway above where the waterfall ended. It was dizzyingly high, as always, seeming to stretch into oblivion.

She remembered what Alphys had said when they’d been there that first time. That it lead to the bottom of the ocean, or even to another dimension... that at the bottom could be “a portal, a wormhole, that could take you out of this world, altogether.” Where you could go where “no one would know you.”

Undyne looked down over the abyss.

She’d never been afraid of heights, but she suddenly felt nauseous.

She looked down at the scrap of paper, still clenched tightly in her fist, as it had been since she’d gone to the lab hours and hours before.

Unwrapping it, she noticed something in the margins, tiny and nearly illegible. There were several things written there, all scratched out thoroughly, but one thing was still readable.

It said “i’m sorry undyne.”

Undyne’s hands shook. Her vision in her one eye blurred, but before anything further could happen, she took the scrap of paper and threw it to the ground. It bounced off the rocks, skipped across the water, and fell down, down, down into the abyss. There was no splash of water, no sound to indicate that it ever stopped falling.

Undyne looked up and let out a scream, a primal, instinctual roar that shook the Underground.

* * *

The world didn’t seem like it was moving rapidly, as if Papyrus was just zooming by as he walked around the house, as if days and weeks and months and seasons and years were passing in an instant. It didn’t feel like it was moving slowly, as if everything had slowed to a crawl, as if every year was a decade.

For Undyne, laying on Papyrus’ couch and staring at the ceiling, time just moved. That was all.

The only sound was Undyne’s own muttering.

“Alphys...”

“Why didn’t I kill them?”

“Why didn’t I fight harder?”

“Why didn’t I notice sooner?”

“It’s my fault...”

“I couldn’t protect her...”

Whenever she said something, if Papyrus was there, he’d stop whatever he was doing and reply back.

“CHIN UP, UNDYNE!”

“I’M SURE SHE’LL TURN UP SOON!”

“MAYBE SHE WENT ON VACATION TOO? WITHOUT TELLING YOU? FOR SOME REASON???”

“IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT, UNDYNE! I KNOW WHOSE FAULT IT IS! AND IT’S DEFINITELY NOT YOURS! IS WHAT I’M SUGGESTING. WITH THAT SENTENCE.”

Undyne never replied. She only stared at the ceiling.

Papyrus sat Undyne up, by literally lifting her off the couch entirely and seating her back down in a sitting position. He was wearing a chef’s hat, holding up a plate of spaghetti in one hand.

“UNDYNE!” he said. “I MADE SPAGHETTI WITHOUT YOU! AGAIN. WHAT DO YOU THINK? GETTING BETTER, RIGHT?”

The spaghetti looked perfect. It didn’t smell like anything at all. Undyne didn’t even look its direction.

“UNDYNE, YOU SHOULD EAT! THAT ALWAYS CHEERS ME UP. AND SANS TOO! HE LOVES EATING!”

“guilty,” said sans, from upstairs. She hadn’t seen him ever enter the house, at least through the doorway.

“SEE???”

“I don’t want your spaghetti, Papyrus,” Undyne muttered, rubbing her hands over her face.

“SORRY, UNDYNE, I DIDN’T HEAR THAT!” Papyrus said in his usual very, very loud voice. Undyne winced.

“I said: I don’t want your freaking spaghetti! Period!” She pointed to her head. “Got it that time?!”

Papyrus frowned, which was a strange expression for him. It looked... wrong, even to Undyne.

“Sorry,” Undyne sighed, crossing her arms and looking away, towards the couch. “I didn’t...”

Undyne’s mouth hung open as she tried to process what she wanted to say, but then she closed it, the thought either lost or just too much effort to express.

“I MISS COOKING WITH YOU, UNDYNE,” Papyrus admitted. Undyne’s head slowly turned up towards him. It was strange for Papyrus to confess anything, much less to admit that anything was _wrong._ But then his frown turned back into its usual grin. _“_ I HOPE YOU FEEL BETTER SOON SO WE CAN COOK AGAIN!”

Rather than reply, Undyne laid back down across the couch and returned to staring at the ceiling.

* * *

  
Sans was sitting next to Undyne. He didn’t _sit_ next to Undyne, in the present tense. He simply was sitting next to Undyne, as if he had been there all along. Undyne figured she just hadn’t noticed his arrival. It wasn’t that unusual, especially for Sans.

Undyne stared down at her hands.

“hey.”

“Hey.”

“what’s up? heard you’re feeling... blue.”

Undyne didn’t laugh.

“mind if i talk?”

“Yes.”

Sans shrugged, grinning. “i mean, to myself.”

Sans stared out ahead of himself, at the television. As usual lately, it was turned off.

“i’ve been thinking. my brother’s real popular, right? he’s a swell guy. he’s got a lot of friends.” sans glanced away. “especially these days. but you know who he misses the most?”

Undyne couldn’t be bothered to ask if it was her.

“that human. weird, huh? why would a popular dude like him care about some little tyke like that? that kid’s got no friends. _nobody_ likes that kid. and, now that kid’s ran away, and my brother? he’s a little less popular now. he keeps thinking, though, that kid’s going to come back and, when they do, they’ll bring some... friends, with them.”

Undyne sighed impatiently. She didn’t understand his point – she hated when Sans was vague like this.

“so, you know, i keep hoping there’ll be something that comes along and takes his mind off that kid for a while. maybe he’ll go take a walk. maybe he’ll get some training done. maybe he’ll learn the piano. perfect his spaghetti recipe. master the junior jumble. you know.”

Sans winked.

“cool things like that.”

Undyne clenched her fists.

How dare he, she thought? How dare he, when she was going through... everything, how dare he show up and demand that she get up and play pretend with Papyrus like nothing had happened? Didn’t he understand? Didn’t he understand that there wasn’t any point to any of it anymore?

“Leave me alone, Sans,” she said flatly.

“hey now. i was just talking to myself, remember? but... welp. if you insist.”

And Sans was gone.

* * *

Papyrus hovered over Undyne’s face, looking down in concern.

“UNDYNE? UNDYNE, ARE YOU AWAKE?”  
  
In lieu of a reply, Undyne buried her head in her hands, covering her eyes.  
  
“OH, GOOD! I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU!”

“Is it spaghetti.”

“YES! HOW DID YOU KNOW?!” Papyrus said. “OH, WAIT. I MEAN, NO. IT IS NOT SPAGHETTI. IT’S AN IDEA!”

To Undyne, that sounded worse than the spaghetti. But she played along. Maybe Sans had been right - maybe it would distract him, if nothing else.

“THE HUMAN RAN AWAY, RIGHT?”

“Yeah,” she said listlessly, resting her hand on her chin.

 _Taking everyone I ever cared about with them,_ she thought.

“WELL! I KNOW HOW MUCH YOU WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO MURDERING THEM IN COLD BLOOD. AND I FIGURE YOU MUST BE... UPSET... THAT, ER, YOU COULD NOT. MURDER THEM.”

Undyne narrowed her eye. She wished, just once, Sans and Papyrus would just get to the point.

“WELL, I HAVE A SOLUTION THAT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL 100% BETTER! AND THE SOLUTION IS... SWEET HOT VENGEANCE! A ROARING RAMPAGE, AS THEY SAY!”

Undyne sat up.

“And how would...?”

“IF WE COLLECT THE LAST HUMAN SOUL, WE CAN DESTROY THE BARRIER! AND, WITH THE BARRIER DESTROYED, WE CAN GO TO THE SURFACE... AND WE CAN BE FRIENDS WITH THE HUMAN AGAIN!”

Papyrus paused, squinting.

“I MEAN, KILL THE HUMAN. DOESN’T THAT GIVE YOU SOME HOPE???”

Undyne sighed, laying back against the back of the couch, and stared up at the ceiling.

It was tempting. For a second, what Papyrus was saying almost worked, even if Papyrus obviously didn’t believe it himself. There wasn’t even any guarantee that another human _would_ come down to the Underground, or that the monsters would win a fight against them, or even that _that_ human wouldn’t come back with “friends” to finish them off.

She could almost imagine Papyrus’ plan working. And, if she was honest with herself, she got a sick pleasure from imagining finding that human and wringing their little neck. Making them suffer just as much as Asgore had suffered. As Mettaton had suffered. As Alphys had suffered. She’d imagined that many, many, many times over... however long it’d been.

But, ultimately, she knew it was pointless.

“Papyrus,” she said, looking at him. Her voice was dull. “Revenge won’t bring anybody back.”

“...BACK FROM VACATION?”

Undyne rubbed her forehead. “Come on, Papyrus. You know they’re not on vacation. They’re...”

Undyne looked over at Papyrus. There was something... off about him. His expression was blank, empty, his grin not quite all there.

It was eerie.

“I KNOW,” Papyrus said, his voice lowered.

Undyne felt something in her sink. The weight that she had been carrying, that she carried every day, suddenly seemed heavier than ever.

She reached out a hand for Papyrus before stopping herself.

“Then you know there’s no point,” she said firmly, narrowing her eye.

“YES,” he said. And, without another word, he walked away, back towards his room.

* * *

Undyne found herself in Alphys’ lab. It was strange. She didn’t remember ever having gone there. But she was sitting in front of Alphys’ big screen, watching some ancient anime about superheroes. She liked the frog-themed one.

Alphys was there. She was laughing at something Undyne’d said, wiping tears from her eyes, but Undyne couldn’t remember what she’d said. Alphys spoke, but the words didn’t seem to reach Undyne’s ears.

Then the screen changed.

Instead of the cartoon, there was a face dominating the screen. It was the face of a dark brown human figure. Their expression was blank, completely and totally. It could barely be called an expression at all.

It was _them._

The human’s hands reached out at the screen. Then they reached _through_ the screen, grabbing hold of both sides of it. They started to pull themselves through it as if it was made of water. Their image distorted and refracted as they slowly, with effort, came more and more into the room.

Undyne tried to ready her spear. She couldn’t. The magic in her didn’t answer her call.

The human’s torso was through the screen, hanging limp over the side. They raised themselves so that Undyne could see their face again, and it made Undyne flinch. They were smiling, a smile that cut their face in half. Their eyes were wide open, colored a bright, bright red.

With one final push, the human emerged completely from the screen. They hopped onto the floor in front of Undyne and Alphys and took, from a plastic sheath attached to their belt, a plastic knife. A toy.

The human turned their smile towards Alphys. Alphys seemed unaware, still smiling at Undyne, as if she had been frozen in time.

“Don’t you dare!” Undyne shouted, but the human didn’t answer. “I’ll kill you!”

She tried to form her spear again. Nothing.

“I’ll kill you!”

Again. Nothing.

“I’LL KILL YOU!”

Undyne’s eye shot open. She realized she was reaching her hands out towards the ceiling, grasping at nothing. Her throat hurt.

It took her a moment to realize Papyrus was staring down at her, concerned.

“YOU... YOU REALLY HATE THEM, HUH?” he said.

Undyne pulled her arms back towards herself and rolled over so that she couldn’t see him anymore.

* * *

“hey.”

Undyne buried her head under a couch cushion and tried to pretend Sans wasn’t there.

"i’ve been thinking, you know?” said Sans. His voice was just as loud as if Undyne didn’t have a cushion over her face. It was like he was right next to her ear. “i mean, being a sentry pays well and all, but... we have to pay the bills here. and i can’t make papyrus pay rent. not on his allowance.”

As usual, Undyne had no clue what point he was trying to make. She didn’t even have the energy to groan into the cushion.

“so... seeing as you’re living under our roof now... and seeing as you’re not quite, uh, employed... i think you need a change in careers. who knows? it might help you. then again, might not. never know ‘til you try, right?”

Undyne took the cushion off her face, holding it as she let her arm fall limp over the side of the couch. She didn’t look in Sans’ direction.

“What’d you have in mind?”

“hot dogs.”

Undyne took a moment to process what he’d said.

“...hot dogs???”

“yeah. i’ve got a nice little business going in hotland. very popular, but very... hush hush. capiche?”

Undyne couldn’t bring herself to lift her hand and rub the bridge of her nose.

“You’re laundering money by selling hot dogs?”

“oh no. it’s just a hot dog speakeasy. the money laundering is a different business. as is the money dry cleaning.”

“Ugh. What’s in it for me?”

Sans shrugged. “i told you. got to pay the rent somehow.”

Undyne scoffed.

“So you’re gonna kick me out?”

“maybe.”

She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

“...Fine,” she said. “I’ll sell the freaking hot dogs.”

“great,” Sans replied. “let’s start now.”

And, in an instant, Undyne found herself in Hotland, behind one of Sans’ sentry stations. In front of her were dozens and dozens of uncooked hot dogs.

Sans winked at her.

“don’t forget the uniform.”

* * *

One night, while she was laying on Papyrus’ couch, she overheard Sans’ and Papyrus’ phone call to the human. For a brief moment, she was enraged – what was Sans thinking, calling them? Talking to them like nothing was wrong? What was Papyrus thinking, treating them like they were... salvageable? He knew what they’d done. How was he not _furious_?

But the rage left her just as quickly, replaced by numbness. There didn’t feel like there was any point to fighting it. So what if they talked to the human? So what if they befriended the human? What difference did it make?

“IT’S LIKE A SLEEPOVER EVERY NIGHT. A SLEEPOVER YOU CAN’T ESCAPE FROM.”

“SHE HATES WORKING THERE! BUT SHE MAKES A MEAN HOT DOG.”

“SHE, UM, REALLY HATES YOU NOW. EVEN MORE THAN SHE EVER HAS.”

“I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU DID, BUT... CAN YOU PLEASE BRING BACK HER FRIENDS? IF YOU MADE THEM DISAPPEAR? PLEASE... UNDYNE’S NOT DOING VERY WELL.”

It was strange, to Undyne, hearing Papyrus so quiet. So despondent sounding. So... desperate.

And why was he acting like he didn't know what they'd done? He'd admitted the truth to her himself. Was he just pretending not to? Or was he still in denial, so that he didn’t have to call his 'friend' a murderer?

But she couldn’t muster the energy to do anything about it. So she laid there, on the couch, and continued staring at the ceiling.

It wasn’t long before she forgot that the phone call ever happened.

* * *

Undyne didn’t know why she was working at the goddamn hot dog stand. Papyrus had been right about what he’d said to the human – she hated it. Most of the ‘customers’ were frightened off by her, the way she forced a grin on her face, the way she practically hissed out every word she said. And Sans just slept the entire time, if he was even there.

When she was ‘done’, whatever arbitrary time Sans decided that was – she swore she spent several days there once – she’d find herself back in Papyrus’ apartment, without any memory of ever having walked there. She just thought it was her current mental state talking.

When she came back, she was always still in her uniform, a red apron over a white shirt with a white, triangular hat.

She _hated_ the uniform.

On one of those days, she returned “home” and started to take off the hat, when Papyrus suddenly emerged from his room, skidding as he came down the stairs and came to a stop in front of her. He was holding something behind his back, but Undyne couldn’t tell what it was.

“UNDYNE!!!”

Undyne almost rolled her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“I HAVE A NEW IDEA! ABOUT HOW TO CHEER YOU UP!” he shouted. “AND NO, IT’S NOT SPAGHETTI. WELL. SORT OF?”

Undyne crossed her arms. She really just wanted to get back on the couch and lay down. She was exhausted... and not from work. But she’d play along.

“What is it?”

Papyrus took the thing he was carrying and held it out in front of himself. It was some kind of... doll, made of... paper? It was colored with crayon and filled to the brim with spaghetti as a sort of makeshift stuffing, spaghetti which was falling out of the seams in the paper. Spaghetti sauce, leaking out from inside it, covered its dark brown “skin” with what looked like blood.

It took her a moment to realize what it was. The curly mop of hair in a bowl cut. The striped “shirt.” The blank expression. It was a doll of _them._

In one motion, Undyne grabbed its head and ripped it off, sending spaghetti dripping from its neck to the floor.

“...WOW,” said Papyrus, sweating. “UH. I WAS GOING TO SAY THAT YOU COULD GET REVENGE WITH IT, SORT OF... SURROGATE... LY? BUT, UH, I GUESS YOU JUST DID THAT.”

“Papyrus,” said Undyne. Her voice was cold. Papyrus glanced away from her nervously, taking a step back.

“ER, YES?”

“ _Stop_ _trying to help_ _me.”_

Papyrus’ eyes widened. Then his expression sank into a frown.

“BUT...”

“I don’t want your damn help. Don’t you _get it?_ There’s no point! There’s no point to any of this... any of this _shit!_ I shouldn’t be... I shouldn’t even be... _”_

Undyne felt her eye water and grasped her head, burying her face in her hands.

“I’m leaving.”

“BUT... UNDYNE!”

“I’m leaving!”

She turned around and, still holding her head, made for the door. Papyrus didn’t stop her as she, struggling to find the doorknob, opened the door and headed out into Snowdin.

And she walked. She walked from Snowdin, feeling the stares of concerned monsters as she passed, towards Waterfall. The monsters seemed happy to see her, at first, but they took one look at her and decided to give her a wide berth.

Before she realized it, she was back at the garbage dump, back at the place where the waterfall ended. She sat over the edge of it, letting her legs dangle over the side.

It still seemed dizzyingly high.

“A portal that could take you out of this world altogether... where no one would know you. Somewhere further from here than you could possibly imagine.”

Was that where Alphys had gone? Another world? Did that mean... did it mean that she was still alive, somewhere? That all Undyne had to do was... jump, and Undyne would find her again?

She stood up, staring over the edge.

All she had to do was jump.

“Hello there.”

Undyne’s eye widened. She wasn’t expecting anyone to find her here. She turned around to see who they were, but there was nobody there.

“Wa ha ha! Down here!”

Undyne looked down. There was Gerson, standing there in his pith helmet, holding himself up on a cane. He peered through his magnifying glass at her.

“...What’s up,” Undyne said slowly, awkwardly. She didn’t bend down so that she was at eye level with him. She considered it disrespectful, not right for someone so important as Gerson, the Hammer of Justice, her hero.

“Saw you passing by and thought I’d, you know, give the old legs a workout. See how you were doing. Haven’t seen you in a while, you know.”

He paused.

“Nice uniform, by the way. Wa ha ha!”

Undyne crossed her arms, looking away from him.

“Sorry. About not being around.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” he said, waving his hand. “I understand. Care to sit down?”

With a grunt, and a cracking noise, Gerson sat himself down in front of her, his tiny legs crossed together. Undyne, unsure what else to do, sat down in front of him in the same position, putting her hands on her knees.

“It’s a long drop, you know.”

Undyne stared at him, her eye wide.

“I...” she started to say.

“You know what’s down there?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve heard... theories.”

“That’s OK. I don’t know either.” He cocked his head back and laughed. “Wa ha ha!”

Gerson stared out over the abyss. “But, anyway, I wouldn’t want to find out.”

Undyne clenched her fists, staring down at her legs. She felt her face turning warm. To believe that Gerson had her pinned like this. That he knew what she was doing.

“Did I ever tell you about Arthur, the Axe of Justice, best friend of Gerson, the Hammer of Justice?” Gerson said. At the last words, he flexed, showing off his almost non-existent muscles.

“...Why are we all Of Justice?” Undyne asked sincerely.

“Because King Fluffybuns named us! Wa ha ha!” Gerson laughed.

“Well, uh, no, you didn’t tell me,” Undyne admitted. “Um, about him, I mean.”

“He fought alongside me in the war. Ooh, that was... so long ago now. A thousand years, maybe? It’s hard to keep track when you’ve been around this long! Wa ha ha!”

Gerson grinned. “Well, as the name implies, Arthur wielded an axe, the same way I did my hammer. And he was good with it. He could throw an axe and hit a human a thousand miles away. No foolin’!”

Undyne wasn’t sure how he could have _seen_ a human a thousand miles away, but she was genuinely impressed.

“Wow.”

“We fought side by side, me and Arthur. We killed a whole lot of humans. A whole lot.” Gerson sighed, closing his eyes. “It was fun. In a way. We used to fight over who killed the most, but he always won. Heh, I blame these tiny little legs. Hard to get to those humans first, you know!”

“You sound like you were real heroes.”

“Nah. We weren’t heroes,” Gerson said, glancing away from her. “We were... something else, I guess. But, fighting alongside a guy like that? You get close. You get real close.”

Undyne didn’t understand.

“What do you mean?”

Gerson laughed. “Wa ha ha! I have to spell it out? No thanks! That’s private!”

Undyne still didn’t understand. She felt a little embarrassed, so she kept her mouth shut.

“Anyway, before the barrier happened, we fought as hard as we could. We knew the humans had some kind of... plan, some way to end the war. So we did everything we could think of to slow them down.”

“Like what?”

“We had a mission, from good old King Fluffybuns himself.” Undyne noticed him slowly twiddling his fingers on his leg. “Kill their mages. Put a stop to whatever plan they had before it could happen. So we snuck into their camps, their villages, trying to find them. Trying to get rid of them.”

“And... it didn’t work,” Undyne said, realizing it as soon as the words crossed her lips.

“’Course not. Those mages? They were strong. But there was one human who was even stronger. A legendary human, wielding only a spear, wearing a poncho. They came to stop us.”

Gerson frowned.

“And they killed Arthur in a single blow. I ran for my damn life, back to Asgore, my tail between my legs.”

Undyne swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

“Eh, don’t be. It was a long time ago now. A long, long time.” Gerson shrugged. “Anyway, what I was gettin’ at is, when I lost Arthur, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Felt like a piece of me was missin’. That’s why I went and retired. I just couldn’t fight no more.”

Now Undyne understood. Her grip on her knees tightened.

“Anyway...” Gerson said, unsteadily rising to his feet. “That’s my story. Good guy, that Arthur. Told great tales. Couldn’t sing worth a damn. Had a big heart. Well, so to speak. Wa ha ha!”

Undyne didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry” again? “I know what you mean?” “How did you deal with it?” All of them seemed wrong somehow.

“Don’t let it get to you. Keep fighting,” Gerson said, his voice suddenly serious. “That’s what he would have wanted. That’s what _she_ would have wanted. That’s all I got to say.”

And he started to walk away. Undyne sat there, unmoving, watching as he very slowly trundled his way back towards his shop.

She stared out over the edge of the waterfall again.

“Fight, huh?” she said to nobody. She didn’t really get it. Well, no, she thought. She got it. She just couldn’t understand how.

But, nonetheless, she stood up and walked away from the abyss.

**Author's Note:**

> Alphys' dialogue about the abyss over the edge of the waterfall comes from this [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQRboZwDrOI) by iscoppie! Thank you to them for giving me permission to use it!
> 
> Thanks to Skirmisher2048 and Mado/Alphyies for their help editing this fic!


End file.
